


as long as it's with you

by hereforthehurts



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, FebuWhump2021, Hurt/Comfort, Lin Beifong and Kya are wives, Married Life, Old Married Couple, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Separations, Survivor Guilt, Whump, Wives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29509458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereforthehurts/pseuds/hereforthehurts
Summary: Kya comes home from field surgery. Lin helps her with her guilt.
Relationships: Lin Beifong/Kya II
Comments: 4
Kudos: 65





	as long as it's with you

**Author's Note:**

> For febuwhump day 16; field surgery !! Married lesbians . Man .
> 
> (Also this may or may not be connected to my last kyalin fic . In my head it is, but it's up to you really! Enjoy <3)

As much as Kya loved her work, there were also days when it would be the death of her, too.

  
  


She stumbles home that night into an empty, dimly lit house, soaking wet from the rain. The suburbs she and Lin lived in was near to the mountains that surrounded Republic City, so the weather had always been colder than it is downtown. It was okay, though—Kya didn’t think she’d be able to handle it if the night had been clear. If she’s not stumbling home cold and wet and dizzy. Because she failed, _twice,_ and she deserved it, the pain. She deserved all of it.

  
  
  


_Lin isn’t home yet,_ Kya simply noted before she slumps into the cold, hard floor, not even bothering to do anything to help herself. Her mind was telling her to get up, _get up, you don’t want Lin to see you like this,_ but she can’t. She can’t. Her body was too weak and achy and tired and even if she could, she doesn’t let herself do it.

  
  


  
  
  
  


_Survivor’s guilt._

  
  
  
  


She’s seen it, the way it eats a person alive. The first time Kya really seen it was when Bumi first came home after serving in the military for almost a year. She had been sixteen then and was old enough to know what was happening, but not old enough to understand. All she really knew then was that Bumi, her fun, goofy big brother, has changed.

  
  


(And not exactly for the better, either.)

  
  
  


Then Kya saw it, the pattern. How her parents had it too, the guilt they carried from the hundred-years-war, how her uncles and aunts collectively carried it with them. Yet still, somehow, they managed to live with it as if the guilt was no more than an annoying itch on their back. Kya never managed to bring herself to ask them about it.

  
  


(Which is a shame, because she should have. She should’ve known that eventually, she’d carry the guilt with her, too.)

  
  
  
  


Kya lets herself drift away and dreams about the rain and the thunder. About the breaths of the dying soldiers she didn’t manage to save.

  
  
  


______________________________

  
  
  


_It was warm._

  
  
  


That was the first thing she registered, even when her body isn’t quite awake yet. Kya could feel the sheets against her body, the covers above her shoulders. The fingers gently caressing the side of her face.

  
  
  
  
  


She lets herself indulge in the warmth for a moment.

  
  
  
  
  


_Those soldiers who died in your care, do you think they’d be able to do this?_

  
  
  
  


  
  


She wakes up.

  
  


“Hey,” Lin’s soft smile greets her. Their room was dimly lit, their yellow nightstand lamp glowing softly against the dark. It calms her from her destructive thoughts to some extent. “You’re an idiot.”

If Kya had the energy to laugh, she would. “I’m sorry.”

“You scared me,” She continued to scold her. “I just came home from an _eleven hours shift_ to my wife on the floor, soaking wet and barely breathing. This isn’t funny, Kya. You could get really sick—more than you already are, anyway.”

“I’m sorry,” Kya responds, more seriously this time. “I really am. I didn’t mean to—I didn’t know what I was…”

Lin frowns and places a hand on her shoulder, squeezing her tightly. “Hey.”

“I… god.” She sighs. There’s a terrible pain clogging her chest. “I’m sorry. I’m messy, right now. I’m really sorry.”

“ _Don’t,”_ Lin frowns even deeper. “Don’t do that. Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Tell you what?” Kya sobs. “That I failed?”

  
  
  


Lin’s face fell.

  
  


“Oh. _Oh_ , Kya.” Her fingers caressed her arm, pulling her closer and guiding her head into her chest. “I’m so sorry, love. Tell me. Come on, you know the drill.”

“I… don’t know. Everyone keeps telling me that it’s not my fault, but I couldn’t—I really just can’t see how it isn’t.” Kya spills it out to her wife, sobbing into Lin’s shirt while she held her, while she kept her whole. “I lost two of them, and it was—I was supposed to save them.”

“Kya, you tried,” Lin tries to tell her softly. “You tried. It’s all that matters.”

“I could’ve tried harder!” she cried. “I just—I just kept thinking that those soldiers, they could have been you, and—if someone had failed to save you, I would have been so angry. And right now, that person—it’s me. And I’m angry, I’m angry at myself, and I’m scared that this would all go back to me and next time it would be you who—”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Lin lets her writhe in her arms for a long while.

  
  
  
  
  


“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” Lin reminds her again, sharp but gentle.

“I—I guess I… missed you. A lot.” Kya rides out the rest of her sobs. “And I couldn’t stop thinking about you… about how I’m always so close to losing you, all the time.”

Lin presses a soft kiss into her forehead. “Well, then, I do think it’s time for us to retire, hm?”

Kya lets out a laugh.

“I’m serious.”

She looks up to meet her wife’s face. “No. Lin, you love your job.”

“Not more than I love you.”

Kya melts, sighing. “You can’t be serious. One of the biggest problems with us back then was that we both loved our jobs too much.”

“But that was a long time ago, wasn’t it?” Lin asks. “Now, I’d give up the world for you if you asked me to. Which is, by the way, what I would be doing if I _do_ retire… literally.”

This time, Kya really did laugh. “You’re terrible.”

Lin smiles. “I’m serious, though. I’d do it. I’m getting too old for all this, anyway.”

She sighs. “It’s not that easy, Lin.”

“At least… you should retire out of field surgeries. I’ve seen how it eats you alive countless times, Kya—it’s not healthy.” Lin cards her fingers through her hair again. “Trust me. I know. You need to let go, love.”

“They need me there, Lin,” Kya says, defeated. “As much as I’m growing to hate it now, I… I just can’t bring myself to leave.”

“It’s hard,” Lin nods. “It’s hard, but it happens. And, you know, sometimes you just gotta leave it to the kids, right?”

Kya smiles. “Yeah. You’re… you’re right.”

“It’ll work,” She tells her softly, with a hint of excitement in her tone Kya had always loved hearing. “We can… you can still continue working at the local hospital, if you’d like that. And I’d be home, waiting for you. Tend the garden, try to learn how to cook, visit the temple a lot…”

“Not worrying about whether you’d be coming home alive tonight…”

“Not getting worried about getting separated…”

Kya leans into her, smiling. “Oh, look. We’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“The talk,” She says, “the decisions, and planning, and imagining our future together…”

“Well, I like doing it,” Lin smiles back. “Maybe that is life, you know. Just… plans, after plans, after plans…”

“As long as it’s with you?”

“As long as it’s with you.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr blog!](https://hereforthehurts.tumblr.com/)


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